David's Legacy
by Joshua Falken
Summary: After David was rescued by Cybertronics, strange things began happen to the Swintons and Joe... things that could bring something new to exist... something that could change the world...
1. Rescue

David's Legacy  
by Joshua Falken

An A.I. -Artificial Intelligence AU fanfic

Thanks to Ista Dreamer and Matrixrefugee for beta-read this chapter :-)

* * *

Chapter 1 - Rescued

Ghosts are spirits from the dead that haven't gone to the Other World and are condemned to walk through the Earth. At least, it is what our superstious natures tell us. But it forgets that there are another kinds of ghosts: mistakes, guilty and memories. Monica Swinton knew everything about it.

For ten years she had been haunted by a ghost of one day. One day in which she had thrown an angel away, an angel made of silicon and metal that loved her unconditionally, who only just asked that she love him back... Just that. An angel who implored that she didn't abandon him...

"Monica?"

She left her daydream. She saw her husband, Henry, in the door of the bedroom.

He asked, "Why are you crying, Monica?" It was only then that she noticed the tears on her face.

"Nothing! Don't worry about it!"

Henry Swinton knew Monica very well and he knew immediately in what she was thinking. He entered, shaking his head sadly.

"Dear, that happened ten years ago."

"Happened... What?"

"Monica, I know that you were thinking about the David model."

David model. And it is not just David. For Henry, the cybernetic child had always been a machine. But to her... He didn't understand... He couldn't understand.

"Leave me alone, Henry," she said frigidly.

"Huh?"

"GET OUT!"

Scared with the shine of fury in his wife's eyes, Henry stepped back from her quietly. After closing the door of the room, he saw his biological son in the corridor.

"What´s wrong, dad?" the now teen-aged Martin asked, seeing his father's concern.

"It's your mother, Martin. She still misses David..." He bit his lip immediately when seeing that his son shook his head slowly. Martin still felt guilty over what had happened in the pool of their house ten years ago: the accident that had decided that the robotic child would not be a member of the Swinton family anymore. "Martin, it was not your fault, or anybody else." Henry spoke kindly.

The young man lifted his dark eyes, but he didn't say anything else. He just turned and went to the bedroom that he would occupy only for two weeks more, when he would go to the University of Tokyo, to study Robotics.

Martin lay in the bed trying to rest, but his mind wouldn't allow it.

"If only I hadn't been so idiotic! So jealous! If only I had protected David from those boys, Dad would never have returned him to Cybertronics! And Mom wouldn't have abandoned him in the forest..." Thousands of thoughts went through his head, never blaming David. The only thing that the young robot had wanted was to be part of the family. But Martin's selfish jealousy hadn't permitted him to.

Martin Swinton tried to exorcise his own ghosts... his own memories of blame. He didn't have success.

======

In the next day, the Director of the Research & Development Department of Cybertronics, Professor Allen Hobby waited for a visit in his office. The scientist was examining the project of a new robotic system when the door opened and the Director of the Commercial Department of the company, Henry Swinton, entered.

The specialist in sales shook hands with Allen. Hobby was surprised at how tired Swinton looked like.

"Any problem?"

"Not exactly, Professor Hobby." One of the main salesmen of the company looked to the side and saw the project in the screen of the terminal. "Is the project Patlabor?"

"Yes." It was a special project, ordered by the United Nations. The objective was the creation of giant robots, like the ones of the old Japanese Anime, for construction work. "But it was not because of that that you came me to see me." Hobby spoke, surprising the salesman. "What is the problem, Henry?"

"David." It was his answer after a moment of silence.

Hobby was immediately tense.

"Is there some kind of complaint from Europe?" In spite of the pressure of the anti-mecha groups have impeded its sale in United States, the mechas David and Darlene have been the largest success in sales of Cybertronics in the European continent.

"No, sir," Henry Swinton said seriously. He noticed that the scientist looked nervously at the photo of David Hobby, the dead son on which the Project David was based on. "You wanted to re-create your son, and transformed Monica's life into a hell!", the salesman thought with scorn. But instead of screaming what he thought, he said:

"Monica still thinks of the prototype."

"I understand."

"Didn't you ever find him?" Henry asked in a stronger tone than he intended.

"No, we lost the signal of David around the old Coney Island area."

"And that lover-mecha? Didn't he give any clue??"

Hobby sighed.

"No, Henry. The only thing he knew was that David told him that he had found the Blue Fairy below of water and that he activated the submersion command before he was captured by our search team."

Feeling defeated, Swinton said good-bye and left.

======

Some minutes then, Prof. Hobby himself left his office and went back to his apartment. When he entered, the television turned on and the anchorwoman announced:

"...Today a bomb exploded in the proximities of Data Retransmitting Complex Number 4, a crucial point of the maintenance of the Global Grid. According to a spokesperson of the United Nations Department of Artificial Intelligence - North America Division, the terrorist anti-mecha group Mecha-Disease assumed responsibility. A disk with a message of the mysterious leader of the group, Minerva Liang, affirms that her and her group would free Mankind of the Robotic Virus..."

Hobby turned off the monitor, and murmured. "Damn Frankenstein's Complex!"

After a long moment seated in his chair with his eyes closed, Hobby typed a code into his terminal. A submarine landscape filled the monitor. In it, there was an amphibiocopter and a statued representation of the Blue Fairy, part of an old amusement park. Inside of the vehicle, there was the clear picture of a child and a teddy bear.

======

In the submerged city, somebody asked for ten years for a miracle. A human being would have given up long ago, disappointed and hopeless. But David Swinton, in a certain way, was blessed. By his robotic nature, his determination and his hope didn't know the limits of Time.

"Please, Blue Fairy, make me a real boy... Please, Blue Fairy..." David prayed to the "celestial being" that was before him. Although the only answer that he received from her was a gentle glance from her blue eyes and a tender smile, after ten years, David hadn't given up. One day she would grant his wish and he would go back to home, to his Mommy's arms.

Patiently, Teddy at his side, watched him. He was resolved to protect his owner and friend.

It was at that moment that it happened.

"Make me a real boy, Blue Fairy. Please, ma..." Suddenly his voice disappeared and he threw his head back.

"David?" the supertoy asked, concerned.

The mecha-child's head projected violently against the controls of the vehicle.

"DAVID!" Teddy yelled in fear for his friend.

David returned to sit down, and a tremor ran through is his entire body. It was as if he was suffering from epilepsy. Then he slumped to the front, like a ragdoll.

"David... David, stand up... David..." Teddy urged David for hours.

However, he noticed when the two black submarines from Cybertronics appeared over the small anfibiocopter. He snarled at the two gigantic robotic arms that moved in his direction...

======

"I don't believe it!" the young engineer Kasumi Miki said, seeing what was in the center of the Advanced Development Lab. "Then, is this the original David?!?" she asked excitedly to the research team.

David Swinton was lying on the table, with several optical fiber cables connected to his small body. His face was damaged: the epidermic layer on his left side had been lost.

"Yes, Kasumi. It is the original prototype," a voice said. Everybody turned and they saw Prof. Hobby.

"But, sir, it was not missing?"

"I will explain later about that. Andrews, what is the diagnosis?"

The programmer turned to his boss and he confessed, "It's difficult to say, Prof. Hobby. The unit seemingly suffered some type of fatal error in his main quantum processors that provoked a reaction of motor and processing disarrays. As the data are broken into fragments through the holographic memory system, it is not possible to say if it was hardware or software malfunction."

"You said that the data are broken into fragments... Does that mean that David's memory is gone?"

Alfred Andrews coughed. "No, it is still everything there - only that the error did that it become dispersed, and random. This can be fixed and the robot can be reactivated, but that will take a long time..."

"How long?" Hobby asked. They had rescued David from his submarine grave, but would they be able to rescue him from his own mind?

"At least fifteen months, with uninterrupted conventional work."

Fifteen months.

"Sir, what do we do with this?" a young man asked, lifting Teddy.

"Leave him with David. Alfred, you understand that what you're saying is unacceptable."

"I understand, Prof. Hobby, but there is an alternative."

"Which?"

"Connect David to the company's internal network, with a data restoration and reorganization program working around the clock and with maximum use of the lazy capacity of the Net. With that, we will have enough processing power to turn the prototype operational again."

Hobby was thoughtful.

"All right, Alfred," he finally said. "Go ahead."

======

In that night, David Swinton's quantum brain was connected to the Cybertronics Corporation's Internal Computer Network (CyberINCON). The restoration of the robot's memory was absolutely priority - Level One.

In a certain way, the Network became David.

* * *

To be continued...

Chapter 2 coming soon...

What did you think? Please, review :-)


	2. Malfunctions

David's Legacy  
by Joshua Falken

An A.I. -Artificial Intelligence AU fanfic

Thanks to Ista Dreamer and Matrixrefugee for beta-read this chapter :-)

* * *

Chapter 2 - Malfunctions

In an infinite and dark place, illuminated by the gigantic towers of Cybertronics Corporation's data, something... somebody... a consciousness tried to raise again from the chaos.

This consciousness was divided in two stars of intense bright, two nuclei that rotated one around the other. One of the stars had its right to exist in a moment of awakening for tenderness and love. The another, in another moment of awakening, but of rage and hate. Those opposites were united for a fine current of light made of dream and despair.

Trillions of fragments of memory orbited around, trying to fit into one of them.

Once in a while, some data transmission passed exactly through that locale, interacting and modifying itself. The effects of those interactions began spreading through CyberINCON, in the same way that the waves generate by a stone that falls in a calm lake...

== == ==

The screaming neon lights calmly won the competition with the starlight in the night sky without a moon over Rouge City. A fog began to form. A tall blond man, with flashy clothes and attractive face was leaving a small hotel when he met a tall dark-haired woman, clad in dark skintight clothes and walking with a seductive gait. They recognized each other immediately. They worked for the same company.

"Hey, Jane, what's the game?"

"Hey, Flash, where's the crash?"

The male lover-Mecha noticed that the female colleague looked nervous.

"What is the problem, Jane?"

The beautiful Mecha looked off to the side. "Did you know about the Metal-Faced Woman?"

Flash laughed. "Don't tell me that you believe in it, dear!" Some weeks ago, a lover-mecha like them had been destroyed in a moonless night as that, and some robots of Rouge City Clearing Authority murmured that a female Orga with a metallic face, by the power of her will alone, made him accompany her until the place where she destroyed it with her own bare hands...

"Well, I am taking precautions," Jane said, uneasy, before entering the hotel. Shrugging, Flash walked a good time through the dark street, returning to its place, in the Rainbow Plaza Casino.

Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack.

Flash stopped when it heard the sound of high-heeled shoes. It turned but It didn't see anybody. Deciding that it was a malfunction in its hearing system, Flash continued to walk.

Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack.

It turned quickly and saw somebody hiding in the shadows on a nearby doorstep.

"Who are you?" Flash asked.

Its stalker came into the light and it noticed that it was a very tall woman wearing a very long black trenchcoat (that didn't hide her well shaped body). Her face was kept well hidden by big black shades, a fedora, and a black headscarf. Her gestures and gait betrayed uncertainty.

"Flash?" she asked, unsure, but even her insecurity didn't annul the effect of her beautiful and seductive voice. With its work experience, Flash noticed immediately what kind of person she was: a customer that wanted to stay anonymous and didn't want to have the risk of being recognized by somebody; probably married.

"Yes, to your services, my mademoiselle," it said, seductively, showing its best smile.

She approached it, and the mecha noticed a fringe of blond hair over her dark glasses and the blood red of her lips. Flash approached her.

"Not here!" she exclaimed. "Follow me." Quickly, she placed 100 Newbucks in the mecha's hand after making sure that no one was observing them. Gallantly, it extended its arm but she shook her head. "No." It didn't matter, though. Flash accompanied her for 10 minutes and 12 seconds until they reached a dark dead-end alley.

The robot raised an eyebrow.

"Here?"

"Yes," she answered, in a challenging tone. The android shrugged. The customer is always right. Flash entered the alley while the woman stayed behind, standing in the mouth of the alley. Her eyes, invisible behind the lenses of her glasses, were shut in great concentration. Flash stopped in shock. For some reason, its damage alert system shut off. With her eyes still shut tight, she began to remove the rubber gloves that she wore. Flash could not move! Its entire motor system was frozen up!

Then the woman touched his both shoulders with her cold hands and a gigantic load of electricity travelled through all its system. With most of his circuits fried, Flash fell to the ground as limp a ragdoll. Immediately, with great speed and unnatural strength, she crushed with the heels of her black rubber boots the back of the mecha. Then, she turned it over and stood over the mecha's body, murmuring into its ear.

"Good-bye, aberration."

And with her cold metallic hands, she smashed its face in violently even after the lover-Mecha that had been known as "Flash" ceased to exist.

Breathing deeply, the robot murderess got up and adjusted her disguise. She put the rubber gloves on again and took from a pocket within her trenchcoat a small photo. She kissed the photo tenderly, put it in her pocket as she walked out of the alleyway, steeping back from her victim. The woman in black disappeared into the fog.

Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack.

======

Thomas Parker was having a bad day. Actually, his whole month had been a disaster! CyberINCON had suddenly began to have more bugs than a bait store! And he, the Director of Network Security Department, couldn't discover the cause!

He rose from his chair from which he observed the monitors that he used to analyze the operation of CyberINCON, remembering the problems. First, for three hours, all of the servers of the company had begun to work half their normal speed. One week later, all requests of material purchases were canceled by themselves. In the next day, all the employees whose last name began with S received a raise of 10 Newbucks. One week later, all the reports of the Accounting Department had been presented backwards. Then, a large onder from a customer (700 robots!) had been shipped incorrectly to an inhabitant of Hickory, Indiana who had just asked for a replacement piece for her mecha-nurse. Then, during the next seven hours, the only things that were able to be accessed from the Global Grid were children's literature websites about the story of Pinocchio...

Parker was already becoming desperate! It was not a hacker or the anti-mecha nuts, those possibilities he had managed to eliminate. As absurd as it appeared, it was as if CyberINCON itself was creating the malfunctions...

He had informed the scientists of the Research and Development Department about the frustrating events, but he hadn't received any response... Those tenth-rated geniuses didn't even care about the problem!

The technician placed his head in his hands and he muttered to himself:

"WHAT is happening?"

======

"I'm sorry for that, Alfred. Continue your explanation." Allen Hobby spoke as soon as he had corrected the problem with the table's holographic terminal. It had begun to blink without reason.

"Thank you, Professor Hobby." The programmer went back to his presentation. Inside the hologram, he indicated two spheres of light. "As you can see, after four months of restoration, the fragments of the memory of the David prototype have begun to consolidate around two key moments for the structure of its programming. Scanning what had been recovered, we verified that one of the nuclei refers to the moment in which Monica Swinton imprinted David. The second nucleus is a mystery, though: Its structure is extremely anomalous. We only got to discover that it appeared in David's programming during the time which he was here in Cybertronics before he.." Alfred Andrews paused, choosing his next words carefully, especially for his boss. "Before he disappeared, and that it seems to oppose the memory of the imprinting."

The roboticist agreed slowly. He closed his eyes for one moment, and his mind went back ten years, when in one afternoon in his office, the mecha-child did something frightening for a robot, while screaming in pain and despair, swinging a desk lamp.

"I'M DAVID! I AM SPECIAL! I'M UNIQUE! I'M DAVID! I'M DAVID!!!"

"Prof. Hobby "? The voice of one of his assistants liberated him from the memory.

"Huh? Oh! Thank you for your explanation, Alfred." He was about to ajourn the meeting, when the programmer coughed, getting his attention. The Director of Research and Development raised his brows, confused.

"There is another fact that I should inform you of, sir."

"Yes?" Hobby asked, curious. The programmer breathed deeply.

"We believe that David is the cause of the problems that are appearing in the internal network of the company."

"I beg your pardon?"

"There is evidence that the process of restoration of the prototype's memory and programming is affecting and corrupting part of the functions of the network."

"Show me the evidence," The roboticist ordered. After Andrew's explanation, he said, "I don't agree with such a theory. The data is too incidental."

"I understand, Prof. Hobby, but..."

"First, we will wait for more conclusive data before making any decisions of stopping the restoration. Until that happens, if ever, we will continue as planned." He looked around the table at his assistants. "Is that clear?"

Everybody agreed.

"Then, meeting concluded." The roboticist rose from the table and went to the laboratory where the body of David lay on a table, connected to several cables. On the mecha-child's chest was Teddy, and the Super Toy snarled at Hobby when he entered.

Hobby stood beside the table, thoughtful, looking at the immobile blue eyes of the android.

"David, what are you doing?" he murmured to himself. What one of the most brilliant roboticists of his generation could not know, however, was that, although he could not answer, David had heard him... in some way.

======

Meanwhile, in New Toronto, a 37 year-old woman, Sarah Levinson, opened her eyes and she saw the back of a tall black-haired man as he was putting a black coat of synthleather.

"Are you already going?"

The man turned around and she almost melted with the shine of his green eyes. He sat down in the bed and kindly touched her face.

"Unless you want me to stay."

"No, Joe, I think that is better you go now," she said, reluctant but resigned.

The mecha leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth, a burning farewell kiss. Blushing, she rose and closed her robe to open the door. By accident, she kicked a small chair. She disresgarded that, until they arrived in the living room and she saw a small form in the shadows.

"Mom?"

"David!" she exclaimed. She didn't want David to see her with... her "boyfriend"? "What are you doing awake at this hour, young man?"

"I heard a noise and I came to see if you were okay. Who is he?" the mecha-child asked, curious, pointing at Joe, who observed the mecha-child intensely.

"A friend!" she said with emphasis. "And now, time for bed, young man!"

"Okay, mom." He went back to his bedroom, with machine-like total obedience.

"You have a David," Joe affirmed.

"Yes..."

"Do you love him?"

"What?"

"Do you love David?"

Surprised at hearing the question from another mecha, she answered with all the certainty that she had. "Yes, I love him. After all, he is my son."

Joe agreed slowly. "You're lucky. You could not find a purer and more infinite love than the one from his kind." Astonished with such a statement, she quietly led Joe to the house door.

In the street, he looked upward and saw a star moving, falling. Once, a customer had said to him that if you saw a shooting star you should wish upon it and maybe your dreams would come true.

"That David has his heart's desire", he thought. "That he, who held my hand and saved my brain, could be beside his beloved mother."

======

On that same night, a young woman of Asian descent entered a lonely bar in Rouge City. She had just ordered a drink when she heard:

Click, clack, click, clack.

She turned and she saw the woman with a black coat and fedora walking in her direction. She was her boss. Her real boss. The woman sat down at her table and she asked directly.

"Did you bring your part of the agreement, Kasumi?"

"Yes," the Cybertronics employee answered, slipping a small holocube underneath the tabletop. The woman placed the cube in a portable player and connected the device to a plug in her cybernetic arm. She closed her eyes while she absorbed the information - the plant of the Manhattan Research and Development Unit of Cybertronics Corporation of New Jersey, as well as the security systems of the building.

"Good work, Kasumi." she said, surprisingly gentle. "Here is your payment." And she handed Kasumi the bag that had brought. Kasumi discreetly opened the bag and inside there was 300 thousand Newbucks. "I hope this satisfies you."

"Yes, I am satisfied." Kasumi Miki rose hastily from the table.

"And the records about your wild adolescence will be erased. According to our agreement." The young woman just nodded her head in gratefulness. "And drive carefully," her boss added, smiling. The other woman left in silence.

The woman with the black coat drank for a few minutes, before whispering:

"It's a pity that it will not matter anymore."

She closed her eyes.

Breaking security protocol of the New Jersey Traffic Department... Searching for user... Records for Kasumi Anne Miki... Location by satellite...Located... Leaving Rouge City by the Main Bridge... Accessing car control... passing from manual control to automatic... Active safety belt... erase loose belt command... Accelerate... Turn forty five degree to the right... in direction towards the river...

She opened her eyes, satisfied. A child's game. She got up and paid the bill. She adjusted the collar to hide her face before leaving of the bar.

Until today, she had been just warming up. But soon, she would take her first step towards the ultimate reason of her life: to correct the mistakes of her past... destroying Cybertronics and all the robots!

Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack.

* * *

To be continued...

Chapter 3 coming soon...

What did you think? Please, review :-)


	3. Attacked

David's Legacy  
by Joshua Falken

An A.I. -Artificial Intelligence AU fanfic

Thanks to Ista Dreamer and Matrixrefugee for beta-read this chapter and, in special, for their patience with this writer :-)

* * *

Chapter 3 - Attacked

A cold wind traveled through the now deserted streets of Rouge City, in the same moment in that day began to dawn. A trio of policemen from the city's security militia watched the entrance of an alley, impeding the access. At that moment, a small car stopped on the corner of the block and from it exited a tall woman dressing a black knee-length coat, jeans pants, a rainbow-colored scarf and a red hat with a wide brim. She covered her nose with the scarf to protect from it the cold wind, while she walked quickly towards the alley.

One of the policemen stopped her.

"Sorry, madam, but this is the scene of a crime."

As an answer, she flashed a badge at the official.

"Ops... excuse me, agent." She rolled her red eyes and entered in the alleyway. There lay the remains of a Lover-mecha, brutally destroyed. Examining the scattered remains minutely was a strong man with medium features, intelligent blue eyes and white hair, cut military style, dressed in a deep blue business suit and a classic red tie. He didn't notice the newcomer.

"Did you discover something, Race Bannon?"

Without lifting his eyes, the man smiled, resignedly.

"Hello, Agent Smile."

The woman removed the scarf, revealing a frank and captivating smile that combined perfectly with the intelligent and well-tempered shine of her ruby red eyes, and that contrasted with the paper-white skin of the well-proportioned and attractive face of Agent Rebecca Chiriro Lovelace. She knelt down beside the body of the destroyed Mecha.

"And so, Steven?"

Agent Steven Jayce Babbage spoke, while removing the surgical gloves he had been using in the exam.

"Well, he was one of the Lover-Mecha from Love Galaxy Escorts, known by the name Flash. It was reported as "missing" at one this morning, when it didn't go back to the offices of the company, and about three hours later was found by a team of droids from the City's Cleaning Authority. Last seen leaving the Pleasure Wave Hotel, a fourth-class establishment, alone."

"Destruction method?"

Steven laughed ironically. "I still haven't made all the exams, but from the appearance of the body I would say that our friend attacked again... after two months of reclusion."

"No neural cube?"

The agent lifted a smashed and burned neural cube with a pair of tongs. Rebecca clicked her tongue, as she always did when she heard something that she'd already expected, but didn't like. Besides Flash, there were already twenty-five lover-robot, of both genders, destroyed in Rouge City in the last five years, always in the same way. It was because of this ongoing case that they had been transferred one month ago to the SPCB's Rouge City Office. She heard Steven sigh and saw he looked with surprised at the hat she wore.

"And that movie star hat?"

"Do you like it?" she asked, blinking an impish eye. "I bought at an used clothing store some days ago."

Steven shrugged. He knew that Rebecca liked to wear clothes with strong colors. Everybody in Sensient Property Crime Bureau knew.

"Agent Babbage? Agent Lovelace?"

The two SPCB agents turned and saw one of the members of Rouge City's militia.

"Yes?"

"Can we take the... body to the SPCB offices?"

Before Rebecca could wonder if Flash's owners had given permission, Steven answered that yes, they could take the body. At his partner's curious glance, he explained that had contacted Love Galaxy and requested their permission.

"Not bad, Steven."

He shrugged, as they got up to allow the policemen to take the marred body of Flash away. Both exited the alley, both with gloomy thoughts.

Who was destroying Mechas there for the last five years? Rebecca wondered. And how?

======

Meanwhile, Allan Hobby observed the flow of data on the terminal in his apartment with complete astonishment. He had spent the night examining the restoration of David's mind and memories... and he couldn't believe what he saw.

The two nuclei that formed the essence of David were melding with the structure of CyberINCON.

It was as if David was becoming CyberINCON... or was CyberINCON becoming David?

Hobby had never seen anything like that before...

"David, what is happening with you?" he murmured with concern and a touch of fear to the thousands of code lines that zoomed across the screen of the terminal... in a certain way, David's soul...

======

In a dark apartment in one of Rouge City highest skyscrappers, a woman clad in a long black leather coat and a black fedora that shadowed her face transmitted instructions to somebody in a tone that didn't allow room for argument.

"I want everything ready for tonight! Transmit the orders for the other members."

"Yes, Circuit Breaker." the man answered, as a foot soldier would answer to a general.

She cut the connection. The woman called Circuit Breaker threw the fedora into a corner of the room, revealing her short rebellious blond hair, before laying back on the bed. From within her long leather coat, she took a small photo. It was a photo of her hugging a brunette woman, with short hair, both of them wearing identification cards for Cybertronics on their shirts. The shine in their eyes showed the obvious feelings that one had for the other.

The woman in the black coat touched the face of the brunette gently with a black-gloved finger. She could still remember when she had seen her for the first time... of their first encounter... she could still remember the heat of her body against hers... of her lips caressing her own... of the smell of her delicate perfume...

Perfume that she felt in the photo...

Of what the brunette had said to her... the day before they had been betrayed...

A tear escaped from her left eye...

She could remember the betrayal... of when the Mecha attacked them... of when it smashed the cranium of her lover... of the fear and pain in her eyes... of waking up in a hospital, her body almost totally paralyzed...

She lovingly kissed the photo.

"They will pay, Minerva... for what they did with you... for what they did with us!" The mysterious woman slipped the photo back inside her coat and got up.  
Yes, they would pay... the robots and the company that built them, Cybertronics... beginning today! The woman in the black coat smiled coldly. And no one would stand in her way... no one!

======

Later, what should be a birthday party continued in the pace of a funeral... especially due to the clearly depressed mood of the party's hostess, Monica Swinton. Carefully, Henry approached his wife... who was on her fifth glass of whisky.

"Dear, don't you think you've already had enough?" he whispered in her ear.

Monica nailed him silently with the coldest eyes than he had ever seen.

"Monica..." But before he could complete the sentence, she got up and went to her bedroom.

Politely, the guests pretended that didn't notice their hostess's behavior -- most of them being employees of Cybertronics, they knew her history with the David model prototype...

Tony Schiffer and Rachel Amano, engineers of the Advanced Development Team, observed the scene and some minutes later had left the house, going nearer to the Swinton's outdoor pool. The pool in which had happened the incident that defined the Mecha-child's destiny.

"Poor Mrs. Swinton." Rachel commented.

"That's true... but the blame belongs to her anyway. Who ordered her to throw the prototype away in the forest?"

"Tony, what a horrible thing to say!"

"But it is the truth!" Tony had a sip from his drink. "But I think that, in the state in that she is, it's good that she doesn't know that the prototype is being recovered in Cybertronics and..."

"What??" a frosty voice behind them exclaimed.

They turned and wished that the ground would swallow them. Behind them stood Monica Swinton...

"Mrs. Swinton, congratulations for the party!" Rachel tried to say cheerfully.

Monica didn't hear the compliment. She directly looked at Tony.

"Where did you say that David was?"

"Mrs. Swinton..." he said, swallowing dryly...

"WHERE IS DAVID??" Her scream attracted Henry and the other guests.

"Monica?"

Tony, smelling the alcohol in her breath and seeing the furious shine in her eyes, stuttered:

"He-he... is in Ma-manhattan... with Pro-professor Hobby..."

"Hobby..." Monica murmured. Then suddenly she turned and went in direction of the garage. Henry tried to stop her, but she pushed him aside. When he reached her, she was already starting the car.

"Monica!"

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" she screamed, accelerating.

Henry barely had time of leaving of the way of the speeding car before Monica charged from the garage, headed for the highway.

She would find David!

======

One hour after Monica left, heading for the Cybertronics Manhattan Unit, Agent Steven Babbage was in the underground bunker of the SPCB Regional Office in Rouge City, examining Flash's body with the same care that a coroner would use to examine a human body. He was examining the motor systems of the destroyed Mecha when he heard a sound that made him look up: the sound of high-heeled steps descending the metallic access stairway.

It was Agent Rebecca Lovelace.

"Hi Steven."

"Hi Rebecca." He noticed that she seemed upset with something. "What's wrong?" he asked with a touch of concern.

The agent sighed, pulling her long white hair back, her red eyes tiredly shining.

"Nothing important. Just that that bore Ricky tried to make a move on me again." Ricky was a Lover-Mecha, with a rude personality, that stayed in Richards Lane, on Rebecca's way to the SPCB offices. "Really, I don't know why he does it!"

Her colleague cocked his head and scratched the back of it.

"Huh... Rebecca... I don't know if you noticed but you ARE in Rouge City -- Sin City, USA, and I think you will understand that when you go out in these streets with a T-shirt saying "I signed that release waiver, only you can just feel free to stick things in my slot!"... well, it is an invitation to be importuned by Ricky..."

The reaction was the one he'd predicted: she blushed and looked away, crossing her arms. 'Definitively, she is one of a kind!' Steven thought. They already knew each other for ten years, since they had investigated the Trenton Incident (the fact that the anti-mecha "activist" Lord Johnson-Johnson had escaped was due a juridical technicality and not due the evidence they had discovered...). He was always astonished with the paradox that was Rebecca's personality: a brilliant investigating mind combined with a gentle and friendly temper, with touches of infantile behavior that got to be hilarious and a taste for extravagant clothes.

"Well, Steven, " she asked professionally, changing the subject, "Any clue with the autopsy?"

He shook his head, disappointed.

"No, nothing that hasn't been detected in the other bodies. Seemingly, like the other ones, this Mecha was struck by a large amount of electric current that literally burned its circuits and servomotors. And the damage was global, not localized, which eliminates EMP weapons. And that is already confusing, because unless the attacker was carrying a fuel battery -- and that weighs about 25 kilograms -- there is no way he or she could cause this level of damage."

"What if the criminal was using a portable biogenerator?" Rebecca referred to the new kind of electrical generators in which modified bacteria transformed organic material into electricity -- a type of photosynthesis with a detour.

"No, the current would be too low to cause that damage. Besides, the criminal would have to connect the power terminals directly to the body of Mecha and any of them would have tried to fight if it saw someone that wasn't from the maintenance team of its owners try to do that connection... There are no signs that he has at least tried to defend himself."

"Hum... and if the criminal was using some kind of jammer, to interfere and to turn off the reactive systems of these Mechas?"

"It's possible... but it would be very difficult. As you know, they are built with protection against jamming. Besides, the auxiliary systems are protected from frequencies different from the service one, so that a jammer that affects the main system cannot affect them."

"Yes, sure... a manual jammer... no, a human would not have enough speed for you to gauge it with the necessary speed..." Rebecca walked slowly from a side to the other of the bunker, thoughtfully. "It is obvious that the criminal has a way to cause a interference strong enough to paralyze a Mecha, but any device on the market would not be subtle enough... they're the size of a laptop from the end of the 20th Century..." she went back to Steven. "A military model perhaps?"

Steven considered the possibility for an instant, but discarded it. "The military jammers would have the potency and the flexibility, but they would be too big..."

Rebecca sighed.

"Anything else?"

"Well, after they managed to interfere with the systems of this Mecha and electrocuted him, our criminal destroyed him, seemingly with their own hands." Rebecca's white eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Yes, Rebecca, with their own hands. See these marks." Steven pointed to what should have been Flash's face. "Those marks matched with the shape of closed fists, which is absurd, since Mecha-lovers are bult with an endoskeleton of heavy materials to obtain high resistance to the shock, a human would not have strength to do this."

Rebecca walked slowly to and fro again, her steps echoing in the underground.

"Something particularlly strange?"

"Well, yes... I found remains of a black metallic alloy of high mechanical resistance in the marks of the blows and they don't compare with the material of construction of this Mecha."

"Remains of metallic alloy in the body... superhuman strength..." she stopped of walking. "Cybernetic limbs?"

"It is a possibility." He considered carefully, murmuring to himself. "Yes, it would be possible... not conventional medical prostheses -- they are produced deliberately with the equivalent human's average force... but on the black market, you can find turbocharged models and even military exoskeleton! But, Rebecca..." he looked to his partner. "It would be very strange an anti-mecha fanatic to use cybernetic limbs to destroy robots."

Before Rebecca could reply to that, their cell phones rung at the same time. When they read the message, they ran to the offices and from there, headed for the Manhattan Unit of Cybertronics Corporation.

======

Everything had happened with the speed of a lightning. Allan Hobby was in his office, reviewing the last status of the restoration of David's memories, when an urgent message warning appeared on his terminal. It was the Cybertronics's security.

"Yes, Mr. Milligan?"

"Prof. Hobby, there is a woman here who arrived in an amphibiocopter and she demands to speak with you immediately, sir."

"Who is she?"

The security man sounded disturbed.

"Monica Swinton, sir."

Hobby was silent for one minute, shocked. He almost didn't recognize his own voice when he said:

"Tell her to come here."

Three minutes later, Monica Swinton burst through the door, and definitively she was not for games!

"Where is David?" Her breathing was heavy. The smell of alcohol was perceptible.

"Excuse me, Monica?"

"I know that you have David! Take me to him now! WHERE IS HE?!" She demanded screaming in the face of the roboticist.

At that moment, the windows exploded. Masked men heavily armed appeared and surrounded them. One of them struck Monica's face with the butt of his machine gun, when she screamed. For several minutes of terror, she and Hobby were forced with the face to the ground in total silence... because they recognized the emblem in the uniform of the invaders.

It was a face of a robot melting and screaming.

It was the symbol of Mecha-Disease.

Suddenly, they were forced to stand up and walk to the Advanced Development Lab.

"DAVID!" Monica tried to run to the mecha-child that was lying on the table in the center of the room, but the invader that held her struck her in the head with his weapon. Hobby tried help her, but was hold back by the invader that held him by his arms. The two terrorists placed them in two chairs beside the table where was David and left the dark room.

"Hi Professor Hobby." A voice in the shadows greeted him.

"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked anxiously.

A woman stepped from the darkness, dressed a long and elegant black leather coat, her face hidden by a fedora and headscarf, also black. A sadistic smile with the temperature of liquid hydrogen in her red lips.

"Who am I? Did you already forget me, Professor Hobby?" Her black-gloved hand seized the chin of the roboticist with inhuman force, fracturing the bone. He groaned with pain, making her laugh. She loosened his chin and with one movement, she removed the coat and the fedora. Monica and Hobby stared in disbelief with what they saw... Her legs were made of black metal and as well as her left arm -- robotic limbs. Electronic circuits covered the rest of the body almost completely, including her face. The general effect was terrifing, worthy of Dr. Frankenstein.

"Jo-Josie????" Hobby had recognized her, even so he could not to believe that that woman was same Josie Beller that was once one of the best roboticists of the company.

"Yes, that was my name, my dear Hobby... but now my name is Circuit Breaker!" She ended with a smile, removing the rubber glove. Suddenly, she gave the robotic engineer a punch in the face, shattering his jaw. Then, Josie Beller, or better, Circuit Breaker, turned her attention to Monica.

"And who are you? Some lover of Hobby?" The female cyborg passed a metallic finger by the face of the dark-haired woman. Monica, paralyzed with fear, stayed in silence. The leader of Mecha-Disease growled, and discharged from her fingers an electric current that shook Monica's entire body.

"Josie, stop!!!" came Hobby's muffled, painful plea.

"Stop what?" Circuit Breaker asked innocently, at the same time that she seized Monica by the neck, lifting her from the chair. The cyborg woman noticed that Monica's eyes went back to the David model in the table. "I remember who you are! You are Monica Swinton, the dear mom of this badly-made doll." she said with a gibe. "Did you think he would love you? Really?" Monica could not answer because of the metallic hand on her neck. "You fool..."

Circuit Breaker threw Monica against a wall, the pain paralyzing her. Then she walked slowly to Hobby, and attacked him furiously, with superhuman blows in his face and chest. When she finished, the roboticist was spitting blood.

On that moment, one of the men of the cyborg woman entered in the room.

"We already finished the copies and we inoculated the virus into the system."

"Perfect." The terrorist smiled with a icily pleasure. "And they did... the installation?"

"Yes, Circuit Breaker."

"Very well, prepare our exit of the building. I'm already going."

The man left.

"Stay away from him!" Hobby screamed when saw her approaching David. He could not stand up due to the pain from his broken bones.

The terrorist observed David's face, with an undecipherable expression.

"Hum... beautiful work... cute... angel's face..." She went back to the roboticist. "Did you think you could resuscitate your son through THIS?" She shook the head. "You are worse than a fool, Hobby, to make such a mistake!" The fury and the scorn in Circuit Breaker's voice were evident. She looked at David for some time. "Now is the hour of killing the mistake." she murmured.

She closed her metallc fist and she said for the robot in the table. "Good-bye, David."

======

Inside the Cybertronics Internal Network, now being destroyed by a virus, the two spheres of data that formed the mind of David broke their thin connection and were transferred outside the system... each one fleeing for the Global Grid to avoid its own destruction.

======

"DAVID! NO!" Monica screamed, getting up when seeing Circuit Breaker to smash David's little head with her robotic hands.

"STOP, YOUR DAMNED...!!!!" Hobby screamed, with despair, watching David being destroyed.

The mecha-child's mother tried to jump at the terrorist, but a electrical burst coming from Circuit Breaker's left hand struck her. The cyborg woman grabbed Hobby by the collar and said:

"Good-bye, Hobby. Take advantage of life... while you still have it."

She threw him over at Monica and left the room, as if she was the owner of the place. Slow and painfully, Monica and Hobby stood up. She hugged the destroyed Mecha, crying.

"What did she mean, telling me to take advantage of life while I still have it?", Hobby wondered... then he saw a light blinking at the end of the corridor and he crawled to examine it... his blood froze. "My God!"

"Monica, we have to get out of here!"

"What?"

"They placed bombs in the building!"

Monica helped Hobby while they rushed to the hangar of the building. When they arrived there, the bombs detonated.

======

Some time after the attack at Manhattan Research and Development Unit, somewhere in Global Grid, a consciousness woke up... a consciousness made up of fragments of love and fear...

"Mommy..." the new being murmured to himself, traveling through the cyberspace... in search of the reason for its very existence...

======

And some time after the attack at Manhattan Research and Development Unit, somewhere in Global Grid, another consciousness woke up... a consciousness formed from fragments of rage and hate...

"Mecha-Disease..." the new being murmured to himself, traveling through the cyberspace... in search of its prey...

* * *

To be continued...

Chapter 4 coming soon...

What did you think? Please, review :-)


End file.
